Special election endorsement #2 is in the books.
Christian Menefee
Let’s get this out of the way: the 18th Congressional district is a storied district with a rich legacy of trailblazing Black Houston leaders from Barbara Jordan to Mickey Leland and Sheila Jackson Lee. The district, created in 1972, slices through large swaths of north, northeast and northwest Houston as well as the historic Black hub of Houston, Third Ward.
That said, who in their right mind wants the job now?
After two incumbents in a row died suddenly while in office, Gov. Greg Abbott showed just how much he valued the district by slow-walking the special election to fill the empty seat until this November. In the meantime, his party redistricted the whole thing, meaning that whoever wins this race would face a primary next year in a dramatically different district. Not to mention the winner, likely to be a Democrat, will head to a U.S. House of Representatives where Democrats have little to no voice on the floor.
So again, who wants it?
Well, plenty of people. Sixteen to be exact.
We’d love to tell you about each of them but we’ll cut to the chase and share our pick:
Christian Menefee.
The accomplished Harris County Attorney has made a name for himself taking on Republican state leaders. Not only has he challenged Attorney General Ken Paxton and former State Comptroller Glenn Hegar in court when they wanted to discount thousands of votes or accuse the county of defunding law enforcement, he’s won.
Now, Menefee, 37, promises to bring his legal acumen to Washington, D.C., hoping to spearhead Democrats’ still emergent strategy to take on the overreaches of President Donald Trump’s administration. Again, he’s already had some success here, helping the county claw back nearly $20 million in public health funding that Trump tried to cancel earlier this year.
“Those lawsuits can be incredibly powerful,” he told the editorial board.
It’s unusual to run a campaign for a lawmaking seat with the hopes of focusing on the courtroom strategy but we believe that this reveals his deep thinking about the political reality of our moment.
I’ll cut to the chase too and say you should go read the rest. They have good things to say about the other top contenders – in their star rating system, Menefee is given four stars, Amanda Edwards and Jolanda Jones get three and a half, and Isaiah Martin gets three – and give a “people who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing that they like” nod to Republican Carmen Montiel. If you do read the whole thing you’ll see why I rolled my eyes at that part of it.
I’ve got interviews with the top four contenders set to roll next week. I’m also awaiting the October finance reports, which should be mostly up by the end of next week, to see who’s been doing what. Polling suggests that this will end in a runoff between Menefee and either Jones or Edwards. Isaiah Martin is running a good campaign and I’ve been favorably impressed by him, but he’s having trouble getting traction with the wider (and older) electorate, who’s not quite ready to trust someone as new to the scene as he is.